To find a Chinese story at your reading level, try one paragraph with the translation hidden. Can you follow what happens, looking up a word now and then? If you need to translate most sentences to understand the story, try an easier one for your regular reading.
Labels like “beginner” or “HSK 3” help you find stories to try, but read a bit before choosing one. You might recognize the characters and still struggle with how the sentence is put together.
We’ve written two versions of a short story below. They describe the same trip to a shop, but the second uses more complicated sentences. Try both and compare how much you understand.
Read a paragraph without the translation
Read the Chinese before checking the pronunciation or translation.
阿明去买面包。店里没有面包了。他买了两个包子，带回家和妹妹一起吃。阿明去買麵包。店裡沒有麵包了。他買了兩個包子，帶回家和妹妹一起吃。
Pronunciation and meaning
Ā Míng qù mǎi miàn bāo. Diàn lǐ méi yǒu miàn bāo le. Tā mǎi le liǎng ge bāo zi, dài huí jiā hé mèi mei yì qǐ chī.
“A Ming went to buy bread. The shop had no bread left. He bought two steamed buns and took them home to eat with his younger sister.”
Can you say what he wanted, what he bought, and who he ate with? If you can answer those questions, you followed what happened.
You might know everything except 包子包子 (bāo zi, a filled steamed bun). You can look up that word and still follow what he did: he wanted bread, bought something else, and shared it with his sister. A story with a few unknown words like this could be a good fit for you.
But if you don’t know 买買 (mǎi, buy), 没有沒有 (méi yǒu, not have), or 带回家帶回家 (dài huí jiā, take home), you may need several lookups just to understand what he did. For regular reading, try a story with more words you already know.
Read the more complicated version
Now read the second version. You already know what happens, so check whether you understand the Chinese itself or are guessing from the first version.
阿明本想买面包当早餐，没想到刚到店里就听说已经卖完了。他只好改买两个包子，回家后分了一个给妹妹。阿明本想買麵包當早餐，沒想到剛到店裡就聽說已經賣完了。他只好改買兩個包子，回家後分了一個給妹妹。
Pronunciation and meaning
Ā Míng běn xiǎng mǎi miàn bāo dāng zǎo cān, méi xiǎng dào gāng dào diàn lǐ jiù tīng shuō yǐ jīng mài wán le. Tā zhǐ hǎo gǎi mǎi liǎng ge bāo zi, huí jiā hòu fēn le yí ge gěi mèi mei.
“A Ming had planned to buy bread for breakfast, but as soon as he got to the shop, he learned it had already sold out. He had to buy two steamed buns instead, and gave one to his younger sister when he got home.”
These phrases explain when things happened and why he changed his plans:
- 本想本想 (běn xiǎng) means he had originally planned to do something.
- 没想到沒想到 (méi xiǎng dào) means he hadn’t expected what happened.
- 刚到……就……剛到……就…… (gāng dào… jiù…) says something happened as soon as he arrived.
- 已经卖完了已經賣完了 (yǐ jīng mài wán le) says the bread had already sold out.
- 只好改买只好改買 (zhǐ hǎo gǎi mǎi) says he had to change what he bought.
You might recognize the individual characters and still struggle with the sentence. For example, knowing 卖賣 (mài, sell) and 完完 (wán, finish) separately doesn’t necessarily mean you understand 卖完了賣完了 as “sold out.”
If you know most of these phrases, the second version might be comfortable to read. If you need explanations for several of them, you could study this short paragraph and pick a simpler story when you want to read for longer.
These examples don’t tell you your HSK level. They show why two passages about the same thing can feel very different to read.
Try another paragraph on your own
Once you’ve read a translation, you know what the paragraph means. To see whether you can follow the rest of the story, try a paragraph you haven’t read yet, with the translation hidden.
- Read it once. Go back over a sentence if you need to.
- Say what happened or what the paragraph was about. English is fine; you’re checking whether you understood the Chinese.
- Look up a word if it’s stopping you from understanding the sentence, then read that sentence again.
- Read the next paragraph. Can you keep following the story without stopping at every sentence?
Pick a story you want to read
An easy story can still be boring. Try a topic you like or a setting you know, and read a few paragraphs to see if you want to continue. You can start with a short story before trying a longer book.
If you’re not sure when to stop and look up a word, our guide to looking up words while reading Chinese shows examples of words you can guess, skip, or check in a dictionary.
